New at 5A New program
at Tampa General Hospital could save
thousands of lives. Today the hospital announced doctors completed their first living donor liver transplant. It's something only a few hospis across the country
can do and
now TGH is the first on Florida's
West Coast. This allows doctors to use part of the liver from a living persn to help people with end stage liver disease and liver cancer. Previously they only
used livers from deceased donors and get this thr first patients or a mother and . Today. Decided he wanted to be my living
donor. It
was a really hard choice for
me because he's my youngest son, but
he never wavered. And I'm so grateful for him. And yeah, I mean it it it's spel to be able to do that for your . You know, these are probably only a handful of people that I would do this for. Most of them are in this room. Doctors say they're liberals. Livers will grow backo their normal size in just weeks. Right now, nearly 18,000
people are on a waiting list for
liver transplants. TGH says this program will cut n the time that they have to wait.